Is aliexpress a safe website?

I want to buy a cosplay from there but im seeing mixed review about it being good or being a scam.

Update: I want to buy this one
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Anime-Hetalia-Axis-Powers-Cosplay-Hetalia-Axis-Powers-Hungary-Uniform-Female-Cosplay-Costume-High-Quality-Freeshipping/206159_501591449.html
This is going to be my first time buying so im worried about the quality of it.

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Any site that advertises merchandise cheaper than the official manufacture's website is a fake site shipping gosh awful crappy knock-offs or simply collecting cash and not even bothering to ship fakes.

The pictures on the site look like the real merchandise because those pictures ARE of the official merchandise. Those pictures were stolen from the official manufacture's website. If you receive anything at all, which is doubtful, it will not resemble those pretty pictures at all.

The payment options say it all, Western Union, moneybookers and bank transfer. The credit card icons are just there for show, that site does not accept credit cards, only anonymous cash payments.

Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever.

Moneybookers is completely anonymous for the scammer to pick up your cash and disappear. No way to track who picked up your cash, where and no way to get it back when you realize you were scammed.

Your bank can only get your money back if there is money left in the scammer's bank account. Scammers know this and will immediately withdrawal the money you transferred. No money in the account means absolutely no possibility of you getting your hard-earned cash back.

In all seriousness, when something goes wrong, what will you do? Send an email that is ignored and blocked? Send chat requests until you are ip banned? Call internationally and speak fluent Chinese?

The UPS, TNT and DHL icons are there only to take up space, that site only ships with EMS, the Chinese post office, good luck getting the "tracking number" they give you to work on the EMS website. You will need even more luck trying to contact EMS when your tracking stops and your "package" is lost somewhere.

You could then be really lucky, your "package" is discovered, seized by "customs" and all you need to do is pay even more money via Western Union or moneygram to the "custom's official" who uses a free email address just like that site has a free email address as its contact information.

Free email addresses are easy to open and close completely anonymously.

It's a BIT SAFE. AliExpress is like Amazon, except that it doesn't have Amazon's protection. It has all these sellers who sell stuff, but those sellers could scam you and then AliExpress might not be able to do much if that happens. If you do not want that to happen with you, use common sense (if a deal's too good to be true, it is not true), and also check the reviews and ratings. It's best if you've had a friend who bought and got and liked that product. Or see the deals on this site: https://bestprice.im/deals

People think Aliexpress is a complete scam because of these reasons:
-> They haven't shopped there and are assuming **** -_-
-> They didn't read the title of what they were buying. E.g. they thought they were buying an iPhone 6 for $200 when it clearly said that it was just a clone.

I didn't buy anything on that website but some one stolen my card number and information and shopping on that website. The person stolen my card and spent 600 US dollars on that website. Now I even don't know how to ask my money back.... It's seen like this website have a big problem. And I am curious why no one to report or call police ? Is that any other kinds of problem ?

I just ordered something from a vendor on AliExpress. The first thing I thought was strange was that it had a "Ship by X number of days or the transaction would be cancelled" I think it was a 9 day period, which to me, means some vendors don t ship in a timely manor so they are forced to ship or lose the order (or you could press a button and extend the wait period). Very odd way of doing business. When it got down to 3 days left before cancellation countdown, I contacted the vendor, and 2 days later, he responds and tells me the item is out of stock, and he ll help me with a replacement. Same time he sent me the message, AliExpress sent me a notice the item had shipped! So I wrote him back and asked if he had found one in stock, cause I just got a shipping notice. I also told him I didn t want a substitute. He clarified he marked it shipped because it was about to expire. I accused him of fraud, and wanted my money back. He said there was no fraud, and I could get my money back if I opened up a dispute with AliExpress, with a reasonable explanation, not fraud. I called my credit card company and had them reverse the transaction. I don t believe all AliExpress vendors are bad, but something tells me that with a policy like "Ship within X number of days or transaction is cancelled" tells me that there must be a problem with vendors shipping on time. Maybe I dodged a bullet. I m certainly glad I paid with a credit card.

For certain items Aliexpress can be a great store actually. I ve bought Nike Free Runs, Triangl bikinis, Stuart Weitzman boots, Herschel backpacks, and Sigma/Tarte/It Cosmetics makeup brushes. These are all super awesome quality, and I question whether they are "knockoffs". As for the bikinis (which retail for $98-$112 ish) they are identical to what you buy from the official Triangl website. ONe of the key things is to check for reviews, shipping times, and ask them to send pictures. If they don t send pictures or reply, then don t even bother. If they have bad reviews, don t bother either. Shipping times should be less than 30 days, and optimally should be in the 10-25 day mark.

Yes & No
This website is safe but what the sellers do is offer better price if you make payment outside of Aliexpress.
After establishing a relationship I made this mistake and I got scammed. Authentic Mall is the name of the seller and his name is Aaron Liu and he has multiple Liu family members on Aliexpress soliciting buyers to purchase outside Aliexpress so you won't be covered. He has blocked me on there and I have called him every name in the book but to no avail. Yufei Liu is western union name. Be careful with this criminal.

I purchased two Samsung S6 phones July 2. They arrived July 7. None of the chargers worked. One phone stopped working after a day. The Seller agreed to replace the phone and suggested a 4G LTE upgrade for $10.00. I had to ship the phone back ($18.00) The day after I shipped the phone the 2nd phone stopped working. I notified the seller and decided to wait till the new phone arrived. Three weeks later the new phone arrived. That phone would not recognize the SIM. Contacted seller and AliExpress. Seller would not return emails or Skype. AliExpress to me to follow their complaint process, which I did. In the process of trying to work this out. My carrier said that my phone was stolen and shut off my service. It took two days to get my other phones unblocked. As of today, AliExpress told me that the Seller was out of business and there was nothing that they could do at this point. If you look deep into their structure, there is no way to contact them directly. Only means is through their CRS and they are worthless is resolving issues. I am out $421.00, all due to AliExpress failures to protect their buyers. DO NOT purchase anything through AliExpress. There is a very good chance you will lose your money and own a worthless piece of trash .

I guess the question here was if there are risks involved in giving them your credit card. That is the only issue I am question too. I anybody is so naive to think that they can buy anything worth big bucks for am bargain then they should wake up! The price should make it clear for any rationing human being. Personally, if I buy something at a dubious price I know what to expect. On the other hand, some of the knockoffs I have bought were totally worth the price I paid so I will not complain. Other than that, brand names that sell at rip-off prices at a huge profit just deserve to be ripped off.

Unfortunately there have been many complains against Aliexpress. This market place has a problem to reply to any complains.They don t pay attention to the problems and it looks like they don t have any rules. Also there have been many cases of stealing and strange/unexplained interference into the clients accounts but Aliexpress refuses or avoids to give any explanation or answers for this. Aliexpress has no control on its site. Sellers are cheating or lie but Aliexpress do nothing and remains
indifferent. Also communication very bad and almost doesn t exist.

Avoid Aliexpress or you will lose your money. I did an order of an iptv box for 99.52 Euros from their worst Chinese seller GREAT BEE TECH , the product arrived after 10 days with just 10% of the channels shown in their description on Aliexpress, When I asked the seller to resolve the problem he didn t want and said it s not possible to resolve the problem or even to guarantee the 10% already working, so I asked refund, they refunded back just 50 Euros, after 3 days actually this bad seller blocked the 10% of the channels I got before, so I paid about 50 Euros for a piece of plastic , when I went back to Aliexpress to ask them the rest of my money, their answer was no you can t, we are with the seller against you , very very bad customer service.

I did already 2 denounces against Aliexpress and Great bee tech, one In Italy with date 26/08/2015 number 65731/2015

And one in France with date 21/08/2015 and every where I go I’ll do new ones.